A Byzantine general of Gothic origin; [425] if he
was actually a Goth, he must have been one of those who "borrowed their
names from the Huns" (Getica 58). Apsikal is Aps-ik-al.

Hunnic leader, about 395. If Kursich is, as I believe, Kurs-ik,
Kurs can be compared with Churs, prince of Gardman in northeastern Armenia,
[426]
and the Ias personal name Hurz, [427] Ossetic xorz.
[428]

Tuldila

See above and p. 405. Tuld- has nothing to do with ,
"train", in the Byzantine military language; the word is of Latin origin.
[429]

423

There remain a small number of supposedly Hunnic names and words which
have not been included in the preceding lists. The connection of the bearers
of the names with the Huns was loose, if it existed at all. Some of these
names and words, provided they were Hunnish, were possibly borrowed from
other languages.

Byzantine captain, about 515. Bury (1923, 449) and Stein (1959, 2, 180)
called him a Hun. John of Antioch (EI 14431), the only
Greek writer to mention the man, says that he was of Scythian origin. In
Romana
4622 he appears as mag. mil. Alathor or
Alathort, which might be Germanic (see Schönfeld 1911, 11).

Altheim (Geschichte 1, 363) rightly rejects the often repeated
assertion [430] that Donatus was a Hun king. Donatus
may not even have been a Hun but a Roman who fled to the Huns as did later
the physician Eudoxius. [431] The Latin name Donatus
was extremely common in the fourth and fifth centuries. [432]

General of the East Roman army in 378, "of royal Scythian lineage" (,
Zosimus IV, 25, 2). Modares was not a Hun, as some authors thought. No
Hun could have held such a high position in 378. Modares was possibly a
Visigoth. Zosimus (IV, 3, 4, 3) calls Athanaric the leader .
The name seems to be the short form of a Germanic name beginning with Moda-;
see Schönfeld 1911, 118.

Priscus, EL 12116. Moravcsik (BT 2, 274) erroneously
calls him an envoy of Ruga. He was a client of the East Roman official
Plinta.

Leader of mutinous Rugians in the northern Dobrogea who between 434
and 441 took, and for awhile held, Noviodunum. [433]Val
might be

424

Germanic, the ending is obscure. But this is no reason to call Valips
a Hun. [434]

The name of the feeble-minded jester [435] has nothing
to do with proto-Bulgarian ičirgü,
in Latin transcription zerco or zergo. The ičirgü
boila had a high rank; he was perhaps minister of foreign affairs.
[436]
There lay a world between him and the repulsive creature at whom Attila
would not even look. Zerkon is probably a "Maurusian" name.

Var

Var, the Hunnish name of the Dnieper, [437] is the
same as bor- in Borysthenes, the Iranian name of the river. It means
"broad, wide," Avestan varu-, Ossetic uäräx, urux.
[438]
Ptolemy's ,
[439]
the Kuban or one of its tributaries, is *var-dan, "the broad river,"
Urux, a left tributary of the Terek, "the broad one." The Huns and after
them the Pechenegs took over the ancient Iranian name.
[440]

It is hard to understand why Pritsak [441] disregarded
these river names. The involved Chuvash etymology [442]
he offered has rightly been rejected by B. A. Serebrennikov. [443]

442. It rests on the assumption
that the Chuvash v-prothesis is of a very early date. Magyar ökör,
"ox," Turkish öküz, Chuvash ,
and or, oru, "thief," Chuvash ,
were borrowed at a time when in Chuvash the v-prothesis had not yet
developed. Cf. M. K. Palló, AOH 12, 1961, 42-43.